Sunkissed Laundry Basket Liner

Hi, I’m Anna from Thimbleanna.com and I’m here to show you how to make a liner for the cute Collapsible Laundry Basket from Moda Home.

It’s that time of the year when we spend a lot of time indoors trying to get organized. When I first saw Moda Home’s laundry basket, I knew I had to have one. And to spruce it up a bit, I thought I’d add an easy liner with a few of my favorite details — Sunkissed fabric by Sweetwater and grommets!1 – Sunkissed Jelly Roll

2 – 24″ x 24″ coordinating pieces of fabric (ideally, these would also be Sunkissed, but I made my liner before Sunkissed yardage was available)

1 – 24″ x 24″ piece of quilt batting

1 – 74″ x 20″ piece of quilt batting

18 – 7/16″ grommets

1 1/3 yards of 1/8″ or 1/4″ ribbon

3 yards of decorative roping

1- Moda Home Collapsible Laundry Basket**

Constructing the Liner Sides

Begin by choosing 36 strips of fabric from your jelly roll (reserve two strips that you really like for the binding that goes around the outside of the basket — in my sample, the binding is the green plaid fabric). Arrange the fabrics in an order that is pleasing to you. Or stick them all in a bag and pull them out randomly — do you feel lucky?

Stitch the strips together on the long sides. You will now have one big piece of pieced fabric that measures approximately 72 1/2″ x 45″.

Press all the seams in one direction.

Cut the pieced fabric in half down the middle of the length of the fabric. You will now have two pieces of fabric that measure approximately 72 1/2″ x 22 1/2″.

Make a quilt sandwich: Place one piece of the pieced fabric right side down on the table. Place the 74″ x 20″ piece of batting on top of the pieced fabric. Then place the second piece of the pieced fabric right side up on top of the batting. Be sure to coordinate the strips of fabric on the top and bottom pieces of fabric. In other words, if there is a strip of pink fabric on the top, the same strip of pink fabric should be directly underneath it, on the underside of the batting.

Quilt the quilt sandwich as desired. I originally wanted to do 1/4″ quilting along the seams of each strip of fabric, but then I realized that the top and bottom of the fabric would have to be perfectly aligned, so I abandoned that idea. DO NOT quilt the two end strips of fabrics, e.g., if you numbered each strip of fabric from 1 to 36, you would not quilt strip 1 or strip 36.

Using a ruler, trim along one edge of the quilted fabric.

Fold the quilted fabric in half widthwise. You should now have strips 1 and 36 lying next to each other, right sides together. Peel back the outside layers of fabric and batting and pin strips 1 and 36 together.

Stitch a 1/4″ seam along the pinned seam line.

Press the newly sewn seam to one side.

With the newly pressed seam still on the ironing board, lay the two batting pieces down over the seam, overlapping the edges. Take your scissors and cut through the batting, running the scissors along the top of the newly pressed seam.

Remove the cut edges of the batting. The two pieces of batting should now lie flat next to each other.

Take the strip of fabric that is farthest from you (strip 1) and press 1/4″ under, along the raw edge.

Fold the strip of fabric that is closest to you (we’ll call this strip 36) back down, so that it lies flat on top of the batting. Then, fold strip 1 back down, so that it is lying on top of strip 36. Pin along the edges.

Whipstitch strip 1 to strip 36 along the edges. Or, if you’re really confident in your machine quilting abilities (or allergic to hand stitching), skip this step and just leave the edge pinned.

Quilt those last two remaining strips. It’s a little tricky with all the excess fabric — just be sure to watch that all of the extra fabric has been pulled to the sides.

Your sides are now complete!

Preparing the Liner Bottom

Cut two large circles from the 24″ x 24″ pieces of coordinating fabric. You can do that one of two ways:

1) Make a pattern by tracing around a jumbo planter or lawn tractor tire or something that measures 22 1/2″ in diameter, or

2) Place the two 24″ x 24″ squares on top of each other. Fold the fabric in half and then fold in half again. You will now have a 12″ x 12″ square. Using a ruler, place the “0” mark of the ruler at the folded corner and pivot from one folded edge to the other, marking an arc that is 11 1/4″ long as you rotate the ruler.

Cut along the pencil line and then when you unfold the fabric, you will have 2 large circles of fabric.

Using one fabric circle as a pattern, cut a 22 1/2″ diameter circle out of the 24″ x 24″ piece of batting.

One fabric circle needs to be divided into 1/4ths. Fold the circle in half and place a pin at each edge of the fold. Unfold and fold in half again in the other direction, placing the two previously placed pins on top of each other. You should now have four evenly spaced pins along the outside edge of your circle.

Cut the 1 1/3 yard piece of ribbon into 4 equal pieces. Fold each piece in half and pin the folded edge of the ribbon to the right side of the fabric circle at the location of each pin.

Attaching the Liner Bottom to the Liner Sides

Pin the trimmed edge of the liner side all around the edge of the liner bottom that contains the ribbon pieces.

You should have 9 strips of fabric in between each ribbon that has been pinned to the liner bottom.

Place the batting circle on top (on the wrong side) of the liner bottom and pin along the edges.

Stitch a 1/4″ seam around the pinned circle’s edge, being careful not to catch any tucks in the fabric. Also, be careful not to catch the edges of the ribbon pieces in the seamline.

Now, place the batting edge of the circle flat on the table. Squish (technical term) the liner sides away from the edge of the circle, towards the middle.

Place the remaining fabric circle right side down, on top of the squished liner sides. Pin the edges of the top circle to the edges of the bottom circle.

Stitch another 1/4″ seam around the edge of the circle, leaving an opening that is approximately the length of 4 of the strips of fabric that are in the liner side piece.

When you are done stitching, reach your hand into the opening and pull everything right side out.It’s just like birthing a baby!

Pull the liner bottom circles away from the quilted liner sides and pin.

Press all the way around the liner circle, both inside and outside, along the pinned edge.

Stitch a 1/4″ seam along this newly pressed seam.

The Detailed Finish Work

Stand the liner up so it’s like a big bucket. This picture shows the liner inside out. You should fold it so the ribbons are on the outside of the bucket.

Slide one side of the liner up under your sewing machine foot, so that the bottom of the liner is under the sewing machine needle. Quilt the bottom of the liner as desired. I chose to do a little freemotion flower in the very center and then do a big spiral out to the edge.

Trim the top edge of the liner sides so that the height of the liner side measures 18″. Using the two jelly roll strips that you reserved for the binding, and your favorite binding method (if you don’t have one, Moda Bake Shop has one HERE), bind the edge of the liner sides.

Now it’s time to place the grommets. Using the instructions on the grommet package, place one grommet in every other fabric strip. I created a little template to mark where each grommet should be placed. I chose to place the lower edge of the grommet one inch above the inside edge of the binding.When placing your grommets, REMEMBER: the right side of the grommet should be placed on the inside edge of the liner. This is because when the liner is placed in the laundry basket, the inside edge will be folded over the top edge of the laundry basket. It will then become the outside edge of the laundry liner.

Tah-Dah! You’re ALL done sewing. Place your liner in the laundry basket, tie the ribbons to the bottom, and weave the cord through the grommets. I chose to keep the cord knot on the outside, but it would be just as cute to hide the cord edges under the liner sides.

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